Rolling suitcases in the luggage rooms, fasten your seatbelts and a few hours later disembark in bustling Budapest. Erik van Balen and his girlfriend Eline Markestein from Veenendaal had this image in mind when they boarded the Wizzair device on Sunday evening. However, things turned out differently. “I heard the tires screeching.”
“We already left with a delay. But the intention was that we would be in Budapest on time,” says Erik a few hours after the Wizzair plane at Eindhoven Airport had to abruptly abort its take-off due to a collision with a bird.
“I heard the tires screeching.”
“The plane had to be full, but also full in the anchors”, Erik describes the moment in question. “We were already at about 260 km/h when the start was aborted. I heard the tires screeching. I didn’t notice that two tires had burst.”
Erik tells us that the plane went to the taxiway and that all passengers got off the plane there. “We had to leave our luggage on the plane. I only brought my personal belongings. Then you walk down the stairs and suddenly you see those two flat tires.”
“I thought: what’s going on here?”
Erik was not really shocked. “I thought: what is happening here? There was no real panic on the plane. Everyone had about the same reaction.”
Meanwhile, the passengers of the Wizzair aircraft are received in the terminal of the airport. “We don’t know yet whether we will fly tonight. I expect that we will have to spend the night here in a hotel.”
He has already bought some food for Eline and himself. “I’m glad I’m safe here with both feet on the ground. Suppose it happens in the air. Don’t think about that. I’ll take the delay and one less day in Budapest into the bargain.”
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